The Comics Curmudgeon is a blog devoted to humorous and critical analysis of newspaper comics. Its author, Josh Fruhlinger, is a Buffalo, NY-native born and Los Angeles-based[2] (formerly Baltimore-based) freelance writer and editor who additionally blogs about editorial cartoons for Wonkette in a weekly feature called Cartoon Violence; he also contributes to a Wikipedia-themed humor blog called Citation Needed. It has drawn the attention of cartoonists and the news media for its commentary.

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Each day, Fruhlinger selects 2 to 8 comics for occasional praise as well as snark on features such as bizarre artwork, nonsensical plots, and supposed sexual subtext / innuendo. Long running soap opera-style comic strips generally get the brunt of Fruhlinger's humor, such as perennial favorites Apartment 3-G, Mark Trail, and Mary Worth, a fixation which he attributes to them being "[the] perfect targets for the sort of metatextual detached irony that is our generation’s terrible contribution to Western civilization."[3]

He also touches on long-running legacy cartoons like Family Circus and B.C. on occasion. Weekly metaposts update readers on notable events in Fruhlinger's life, such as his July 22, 2008, appearance[4] on the game show Jeopardy!,[5] offer critical commentary on the comic strip industry, and judge posters to the blog in a "Comment Of The Week" contest.[6] The blog's original name was "Josh Reads the Comics so You Don't Have To", which is reflected in the site URL, joshreads.com.

On December 18, 2008, the comic strip Archie began occasionally referencing the blog's recurring "Archie Joke-Generating Laugh Unit 3000" joke.[16] On August 12, 2009, the comic strip Pearls Before Swine broke the fourth wall and made reference to the Comics Curmudegon as part of a tirade against Pearls writer Stephan Pastis.[17] On May 6, 2012, the comic strip Crock introduced a character named "Freerloiter" (an apparent parody of Fruhlinger's name) who lost all of his artistic talent after a lobotomy. However, Commander Crock "pulled the plug" on Freerloiter after he announced his intention to move to Baltimore and start a comics blog. Fruhlinger responded on his blog that he believed the joke would be incomprehensible to those outside the "fairly small slice of the comics-reading public who also reads my blog."[18]

The Comics Curmudgeon was ranked 13th on PC Magazine's 100 Favorite Blogs list for 2007,[19] and Elite Choice named it one of 2007's Top 125 Elite Blogs[20] (judged on traffic generation, Alexa ranking and other measures of visibility). Josh Fruhlinger was named 2007's Blogger of the Year by The Week based on his analysis of editorial cartoons.[21] The Comics Curmudgeon has also won the 2008 Weblog Award for Best Humor Blog.[22]